A student insist that smoking marijuana does not interfere with his snowboarding skills. Design an experiment (in a laboratory) that would test for this. Why would you have trouble actually doing this?
Hypothesis: If a student smokes marijuana, it will deteriorate his snowboarding and balancing skills.
Independent variable:
Amount of THC given (marijuana’s active ingredient is THC, the amount of THC given determines the strength of the effects.
Amount of THC smoked (200 micrograms).
Time consumed prior to playing the snowboarding game (10 minutes).
Type of game (a stimulation machine where one has to balance on a tilting snowboard with a huge screen displaying the snowboarding route).
Length of game (30 minutes).
Number of students participating (100: 50 boys 50 girls).
Dependent variable:
Score received on the game.
Other factors:
Students taking in this experiment will be randomly selected, between the ages of 14-18, 25 from each age group with 5 years of experience.
The game will test balance.
Students will never have taken marijuana or THC before (conduct a drug test).
Students will never have played the game before.
Students will have no records of medical problems or diseases.
Half of the boys and half of the girls will not be given the THC, and instead will be given a placebo. The experiment will follow the double blind study method in order to avoid influence from those giving out the drug to the patients.
The performance and scores of the game will be compared. If there is a change, it is due to the THC.
Hypothesis: If a student smokes marijuana, it will deteriorate his snowboarding and balancing skills.
Independent variable:
- Amount of THC given (marijuana’s active ingredient is THC, the amount of THC given determines the strength of the effects.
- Amount of THC smoked (200 micrograms).
- Time consumed prior to playing the snowboarding game (10 minutes).
- Type of game (a stimulation machine where one has to balance on a tilting snowboard with a huge screen displaying the snowboarding route).
- Length of game (30 minutes).
- Number of students participating (100: 50 boys 50 girls).
Dependent variable:Other factors:
The performance and scores of the game will be compared. If there is a change, it is due to the THC.